


in heart-stopping waves of hurt

by DeadSatelliteTheTombGirl



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Drowning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, percy and annabeth have nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:47:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26775376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadSatelliteTheTombGirl/pseuds/DeadSatelliteTheTombGirl
Summary: Percy Jackson didn't know what it felt like to drown, yet here he was feeling it, here he was dying.(Title from the song The Lakes by Taylor Swift)
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Kudos: 2





	in heart-stopping waves of hurt

Percy didn’t know what it felt like to drown, yet here he was feeling it. He pressed his hands to his throat. He tried to scream. He tried to scream again, and all he heard was agony ringing in his ears. He reached upwards, his fingers stretching towards the surface that must be up there somewhere. It must. It had to be, because he was dying. And, for once, he didn’t want to die.

His lungs burned. He couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t. He opened his eyes to the darkness around him, and if anything that made it worse. All he could see in every direction was emptiness, which meant no chance of rescue, no chance of escape. 

And then he broke inside. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to breathe if he opened his mouth, but it didn’t matter. He gasped. His lungs expanded and he choked. 

He could breathe. Suddenly he wasn’t drowning anymore. The eyes that he hadn’t noticed closing flew open, and instead of the ocean around him, he saw a room lit by a computer screen. He saw Annabeth hunched over the desk that they shared, her laptop unsettlingly bright.

Percy sat up. The pressure of the water that had never truly been there melted away from him, but the unease stayed. It was nothing but a dream, and yet it didn’t feel that way. He hated the nightmares, the way they clawed at the tattered edges of his psyche.

He could see Annabeth’s earbuds, so that explained why she hadn’t heard him gasp, but it left him effectively alone. He rubbed his chest with the heel of his hand and glanced at his watch. It was three in the morning.

If Annabeth turned around and he was just sitting there, staring at the back of her head, it would be weird. But if she didn’t turn around, he might escape having to talk about his nightmare. He sighed, because he knew that she was probably going to turn around at some point, and he didn’t want to be weird.

“You’re not supposed to be awake yet, Beth,” he said, keeping the shake out of his voice.

Annabeth jumped, turned towards him, and pulled her earbuds out of her ears.

“You’re not supposed to be awake yet either,” she said, adjusting her near-fluorescent orange sweatshirt on her shoulder.

“I said it first,” said Percy, forcing his lips to curve into a smile.

“Nightmares again,” said Annabeth, “I thought it was best to just start working early.”

Percy nodded. He could help with this. He could comfort Annabeth. He could ignore the sick feeling under his ribs, maybe even forget it was there. He could use taking care of Annabeth as an excuse to ignore the pain that sat like a living thing in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “do you want to talk?”

He swung his legs down off the bed and started sorting through all of the crap on the bedside table for his claw clip. His hair was in his face, and that wasn’t making him feel any better. His skin felt like wet paper towel and his brain was buzzing and his insides hurt.

Annabeth shrugged.

“Spiders,” she said, “dripping out of the windows and the walls and the ceiling, and crawling into my nose and eyes and ears and mouth.”

She pulled a knee up to her chest and rested her head on it. Her use of the word ‘dripping’ reminded Percy of water, which reminded him of drowning. He forced his breath to even out and pulled his hair up into his claw clip.

“It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, I just didn’t want to go back to sleep,” said Annabeth.

“Ok, I get you. I totally, totally get you. But, do you think you can try and go back to sleep? If you can’t, or don’t want to, that’s ok, but you’ll feel a lot better tomorrow if you get some rest,” said Percy, doing his best to sound normal.

“Not so fast, seaweed brain, you never told me why you’re awake,” said Annabeth, because she was good at subject changes.

“I just woke up,” lied Percy.

He didn’t want to think about dealing with the way he was feeling. The way he was feeling could be labeled as either, ‘like trash’ or ‘as though he’d been recently blended up in a blender’. He wasn’t picky about which one to call it, he just wanted not to be feeling either of those ways anymore. 

“I know you woke up,” said Annabeth, rolling her eyes, her voice dry as a rainless summer.

Percy stuck his tongue out at her. 

“Nightmares for you too?” She said, because she was perceptive.

Percy shrugged. 

“Yeah,” he said, “but I’m gonna be ok.”

Annabeth closed her laptop and moved over to sit next to Percy on the bed.

“What happened?” She said.

Percy didn’t want to talk about it, but he knew by the way Annabeth was looking at him that he needed to. 

“I drowned,” he said, “And gotta say, Beth, I didn’t enjoy it. I don’t know what I expected it to be like, but it sure as Hades wasn’t that. It hurt a lot more than I thought. I mean it wasn’t even real and my lungs are definitely permanently damaged.”

Percy barked a horse little laugh. Annabeth’s face said, ‘Percy, having a nightmare in which you drowned is not something to joke about.’ Percy turned up the corner of his mouth again. He was doing his best to cultivate a look that said, ‘I’m fine.’ Annabeth wasn’t buying it, because she had well over half a brain cell, even this early in the morning.

“I think we’re both way too tired,” said Annabeth.

“Ok, do you plan on sleeping?” Said Percy.

This was a stalemate, because neither of them particularly felt like opening themselves up for more nightmares. So they sat there on opposite sides of the bed in silence for a moment.

“What are you working on right now? Maybe I can help you brainstorm,” said Percy, because that felt like a good compromise for sleeping.

“I’m doing a piece for my design class,” said Annabeth, getting up to retrieve her laptop.

“So how can I help?” Said Percy, pulling a blanket up around himself, and leaning against the wall.

Annabeth flopped back down next to him on the bed and showed him the rough draft of a can design for a soda, which she’d made up for the purposes of the assignment. They tweaked the designs, shifting shades in color palettes and slightly changing logo shapes.

When they woke up, Annabeth’s laptop was dead, and they had sore necks from sleeping sitting up, but at least they had slept. Streaks of sunlight reached in golden ribbons between the slats of the blinds, blanketing them in strips of light. This morning was bright, hopeful, the beginning of another day to make the best of. Neither of them had dreamed.


End file.
